


Writober 2: Electric Spookyaloo: Fics Day 10: Sleep Paralysis/Nightmare

by indevan



Series: Writober 2: Electric Spookyaloo [10]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Memories, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 09:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16261388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: He’s always had nightmares, as long as he can remember





	Writober 2: Electric Spookyaloo: Fics Day 10: Sleep Paralysis/Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> when i don't know what to write, i always default to trunks lmao

It’s only for a year but, to Trunks, it feels like an age.  In this room, the air is heavy and light at once. It’s stuffy enough where he feels he has to yawn nearly constantly, but open and endless.  Day and night have no meaning and he goes to sleep only when his body is tired, when he can no longer go on. He hates it, like he always does, because when he sleeps he dreams.

He’s always had nightmares, as long as he can remember.  Even before the androids became a physical and real threat in his life, he had nightmares of them killing his mother.  Of making him watch and then waking up before they killed him, too.

Now his dreams make very little sense.  It isn’t just replays of Gohan’s death or various bad things happening to his mother.  It’s a jumble of nonsense that he can’t keep track of and, when he wakes up, the images have faded immediately but the panic he feels lingers.

He tries not to cry out in the chamber because he doesn’t want his father to hear.  Part of him doesn’t know why he wants his approval so badly. Why he wants to see him look at him in pride.  In the time he’s known him, his father has done little to endear himself to him. He’s rude and selfish, but.  But he still sees a glimmer of what he thought his mother saw. What he wants to see. And he wants so badly to make him proud.

That doesn’t involve whimpering or screaming in his sleep.

Trunks and his father rarely fall asleep together.  While he lets his body rest, he knows his father stays out there, pushing and pushing.  Once, in a rare and disarming moment, he told Trunks that he used to not see the point in training.  That he was an elite, the strongest Saiyan. Then he had spit and said “that Kakarrot is good for something, I guess.”  Trunks feels that there’s more to it. That, like most things with his father, it isn’t that simple, but he knows he won’t get an answer.  He’ll only get a “and why do you want to know?” and be told to spend his energy training, not asking stupid questions.

Tonight (as he calls it anyway since there is nothing but unrelenting white light in the chamber), he pulls himself into bed and waits for his body to rest long enough for the nightmares to begin.

He spirals into them, unsure when his own thoughts gain images and his subconscious bleeds in.  In it, Gohan is there. His Gohan--no. Not his Gohan. Never his Gohan because he only would ever see him as a younger brother.  But in his mind, he’s alive and he’s holding Trunks by his wrist. His voice is urgent, deep and resonating and making him want to cry even though his dream self can’t.

“You have to go.  You have to go.”

He says it over and over again.  His eyes are glazed over and his mouth isn’t matching his words.  Trunks’s ears feel muffled and he lifts his hands to cover them and he pulls away from Gohan’s grip.  And he’s gone, far ahead, and he’s left to chase after him. His legs move so slowly as if he’s wading in mud and he can’t reach him.

“Oh, baby.”

His mother is there, stroking his hair like she would when he had nightmares as a child, her gaze faraway.  It’s the look she’d get when she thought he wasn’t in the room. When she would stop what she was working on and stare at the wall without blinking.

He misses her.  Loves his mother here and he cherishes their differences but he misses his mother.  His hardened and brave and lonely mother who tries her hardest to keep him alive despite his defiance.  Despite him wanting to make Gohan proud. Make his father proud.

And she’s gone and he’s in the remains of West City.  The androids are there but they don’t notice him. Eighteen is sitting under the charred branches of a tree, chestnuts heaped on her skirt.  She counts them one by one and places them beside her in a small pile. She doesn’t look dangerous here, just lost and sad.

Seventeen is kneeling at a scarred patch of earth, frowning.  He keeps picking up a handful of soil and letting it fall back onto the ground.

“Ugly, ugly.”

He notices Trunks first and his body tenses but they’re.  Different, he realizes. They’re the androids from this timeline.  More powerful but bored rather than sadistic. They don’t kill. He doesn’t trust them, but they aren’t the same as the ones who haunt his memories.  He knows that. They’re maybe as lost as him, as much as he wants to hate them. Seventeen killed his father. Trunks wants the approval of his.

A bug is scuttling towards him, growing bigger and bigger.  The androids disappear. He tries to scream but no sound comes out.  Bugs everywhere now, green and mottled and chorusing in a deep, resounding voice that hurts his ears.  Gohan, tugging his wrist again.

“You have to go.  You have to go.”

Bugs crawling in his mouth, talking at once.  A symphony rattling his eardrums. He wants so badly to follow Gohan but afraid to move.  Afraid the bugs will form the horrifying monster starting to take center stage in his nightmares.

He awakens with a start, lying on his side.  Trunks sits up and rubs his eyes, the memories of his nightmare already fading to the edges of his mind.  He still feels unsettled, though, and his heart is only just now slowing down to normal. His overgrown hair falls in his face and he pushes it back.

A groan makes him turn and he sees that his father has actually gone to bed.  He twists on the bed, his face creased in anguish but Trunks knows better than to try and stir him.

“N-no…”

The word escapes his father’s lips and it sounds--fearful.  He sounds scared.

“Enough.”

He thinks his father says it to him, but he’s still speaking in his sleep.  He says something else, in a language Trunks doesn’t understand, and his body writhes as if in pain.  He jolts and then awakens. It’s slightly shaded here, where they’re meant to sleep, even if it’s only a touch darker than the harsh, white light of the chamber.  Here, though, he can see his father’s eyes reflect the light in a steady glow. He’s noticed the same in himself when he awakens from a dream and waits for his mother, catching himself in the mirror.

“What are you gawping at?”

His voice is demanding and harsh, dryer and raspier than normal from sleep.  Trunks shakes his head.

“Nothing.”

He drags himself up out of bed and prepares for another bout of relentless training.  He sees his father do the same. Sees his scars before he pulls his blue shirt on. Many harsh, deep, puckered.  Angry. Trunks turns and busies himself with making his bed. He steals another glance at his father as he adjusts his armor and then looks away.

He isn’t the only one who has nightmares, it seems.


End file.
